Conan O’Brien Will Be A Guest On 'The Tonight Show' Over A Decade After Getting Fired

Conan O'Brien is headed back to The Tonight Show for the first time since he was unceremoniously let go to clear the way for Jay Leno to take the late-night show's reins once again.

Of course, Leno has since retired (again) and now Jimmy Fallon is at the helm. That show is wildly unwatchable unless you want to watch the cast of Young Sheldon play Scattergories, which you don't.

But it'll be a bit more watchable on April 9 when Conan returns to promote his new travel show, Conan O'Brien Must Go, which will stream on Max.

This won't be the first time Conan has been back at Rockefeller Center since leaving NBC. He made a cameo on SNL a few years back. However, his return to the Tonight Show is kind of a big deal.

It brought up some feelings and memories…

Conan O'Brien was fired by NBC after less than a year of hosting <i>The Tonight Show</i> and was replaced by his predecessor, Jay Leno. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

The Only Time I Ever Protested Anything Was When Conan Lost The Tonight Show

The first thing that struck me about this was that I couldn't believe it had been 14 years since Jay Leno (who is a comedy legend, don't get me wrong) found himself in Tonight Show drama for the second time.

I was into Conan when I was a kid, but mainly through a DVD with the best of Triumph The Insult Comic Dog on it and The Simpsons which he wrote on during seasons four and five, smack dab in the middle of the series' golden age. 

Conan took over the 11:35 slot just after I finished seventh grade, and with the show being one hour earlier, I watched it all summer. In retrospect, was The Tonight Show as good as his stint on Late Night? No, but this was my intro and I was hooked.

I watched as many episodes as I could, either when it aired I'd record it.

Fast-forward to the following January. I was in eighth grade and the rumblings began that Leno would return despite his 10 pm prime time showing being a miserable failure.

I was distraught. I was a big Conan guy. How could this be?

As it became more and more clear that Conan's days on the Universal Lot where the Tonight Show was shot were numbered I decided to do something that ensured that dates would be hard to come by upon reaching high school: I printed out some "I'm With CoCo" posters and stuck them on the front of all my binders.

This way, everyone at my small rural Pennsylvania school knew I stood firmly with one of my biggest comedy heroes… and no one cared. Nor should they have.

Still, to this day, it's the only time I felt strongly about any kind of social cause (if that even is a social cause, which it probably isn't) to engage in any form of protest.

Sure, I've got opinions, but none of them have since risen to the level of printing posters.

I'm looking forward to this. It's probably one of the biggest moments in late night in years…which unfortunately isn't saying a whole lot.